


Home Is a Four Letter Word

by missyay



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Coming Out, Gender Issues, Growing Up, Homophobia, M/M, Russian Politics, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-06 04:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10325927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missyay/pseuds/missyay
Summary: Russia stops breathing down his neck once Victor realises it's a place rather than a state of life and that he can leave it behind, forever, if he chooses.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I want to apologise in advance because this fic will not be thoroughly researched. There will be timeline issues and wrongly used skating terms and awkward phrasings. I will focus mainly on Victor's (and, to an extent, Yuri's) feelings about and issues with Russia, and everything they lead to. I also absolutely and wholeheartedly want Victor and Yuri to end up happy, so that's probably what's gonna happen.

Victor feels like someone is breathing down his neck throughout his childhood.

He skates because he is good at it, and good at mimicking motions and steps and jumps. He likes his coach, Yakov, because he never demands Victor be happy, only ever perfect. Perfection, Victor feels, is an achievable goal.

He skates like someone is following him; his turns are sharp and his jumps are crisp and his every movement is fluid and fast, and the jury loves him but the audience is quietly amazed at best.

“You have to give them something for their money”, Yakov tells him once, after a competition. Victor only shrugs because he _is_ , he's giving them the jumps he spent months and years perfecting, he's giving them sharp turns and flawless routines, he's giving them something to marvel at, but it never seems to be enough.

“Can you give me an example of what I'm not doing?” Victor asks, skating lazy circles, forwards, backwards. Sometimes, Yakov will actually get on the ice and give Victor the equivalent of a rough draft. Victor is pretty good at figuring out what to take from it, usually.

“No”, Yakov says, gruff.

Victor shrugs again, and they leave it there.

Just before he wins Junior World in The Hague at age 15 for the second time, he realises, abruptly, that it has stopped. He doesn't have to hide, here.

He can pinpoint the second it happens: he's grouped around a table with his fellow competitors, socialising – Yakov made him go. Victor plans to listen and nod and eat something nice and leave at an acceptable time. The conversation keeps ping-ponging back to girls. At some point, Victor must have stopped listening, but he is still nodding along, so it counts. One of them, a tall, black-haired guy – Poland, possibly, Victor thinks, says, “Ain't that right, Jan?”

And Jan, who is a little shorter and almost aggressively blond, replies, off-handedly: “I wouldn't know. I'm gay.”

Victor grips his fork tighter and sits up straight, but nothing happens. Victor chances a look around, and everybody seems to be looking at everybody else except maybe Jan, but there are no vicious remarks, there's no threat of violence.

It takes Victor another second to realise that the nothing that's happening is already enough to make Jan uncomfortable, so he says, into the silence, as chipper as he can, “Oh hey, me too!”

It's such a relief he nearly misses Jan beaming at him. He looks pleasantly surprised, and like he's willing to try something. Victor smiles back, and it's maybe ten percent infatuation and ninety percent the realisations piling up in his mind.

In The Hague, people like him are happy.

In The Hague, boys like him hold hands with boys in public, and they don't fear for their lives because _they don't have to._

Victor drops his act; he is unapologetically flirty and flamboyant and gay, and it is _great._ Some people don't like him because of it, and some people have never liked him to begin with, but he has the rest of them in his pocket.

He starts his program by blowing a kiss to the audience. He smiles throughout his routine. He skates himself free from the last remnants of his fear.

The audience loves him, he can tell: he can hear them after every turn, getting more fired up even when he isn't jumping or doing a difficult step sequence, simply because he is _looking at them_ and because he is happy and _he is finally, finally happy._

Victor kisses his gold medal and then later, he kisses Jan, who is conveniently susceptible to his charms and equally conveniently placed next to him, wearing the bronze medal.

After that, Victor skates because he gets to leave Russia if he does.

Russia stops breathing down his neck once Victor realises it's a _place_ rather than a state of life and that he can leave it behind, forever, if he chooses.

He doesn’t choose to – not yet. Because of Yakov, and eventually, because of Yuri: a little blond boy that Yakov takes on at age seven. His talent, his lack of a family beyond his grandfather, and his internalised fear remind Victor of his younger self, except that Yuri takes the detour down to anger before he channels it into perfection. Victor feels responsible in a backwards sort of way, so he stays.

Theoretically, Victor knows that Russia is a place. He has left some of his inhibitions. He is charming, now, and as tactile as people will allow: he hugs and clasps hands with and drapes himself over his competitors, and friends, and Yuri, who never pushes him away but always pulls a face.

He is even flirtatious, in a very generalised way that he carefully never points in the direction of a specific person or people of a specific gender. He doesn’t betray himself and he doesn’t risk anything. It’s a brittle peace, though, and exhausting at times.

When the Gay Propaganda Law is passed, Victor is twenty-four and he is _tired._

Yuri is still on the ice when Victor shows up to practice that day. His face is whiter than usual, his hands balled into small fists by his sides. He is nine years old, and he is not crying through sheer force of will.

Victor wants to say something encouraging, and doesn’t know how. He only knows to be charming, not warm, and never, ever protective.

He says Yuri’s name with what he deems a suitable amount of cheer, and Yuri turns sharply, like he's been waiting for a sign from him, skating to the edge of the rink where Victor is standing. He peers up at Victor from where he can barely look over the edge of the border even with the added height of the skates, for a long time. Up close, Victor can see crescent-shaped indentations on his cheeks from where he must have been clawing at them.

Thoughtlessly, he reaches out a hand and covers each mark with a fingertip. He means it as a gesture of comfort, of understanding, but Yuri bats his hand away impatiently, and Victor sighs. He is so fantastically out of his depth when it comes to comforting people in general and Yuri in particular.

“Are you gay?” Yuri asks finally, in his usual, peevish tone.

At three o'clock, Yakov is watching them like a hawk. He has good ears, Victor knows, and for a second, he’s afraid. Then he remembers: Yakov is cold, and coldness is neutral.

Victor has never said it in Russian before. Somehow, that makes it hard. Somehow, the word is another cold whisper down his neck. But he’s shaken those off before, and he does it again.

“Yes, Yuri, I am gay”, he says seriously. “Are you gay?”

Yuri turns so fast his skates scrape against the border, the sound biting in Victor’s ears the only feedback he’ll ever get on that front. He skates to the middle of the rink, and starts what Victor assumes must be his routine, only sharper, colder, more precise. Anger is the only emotion Victor can see in it, and he thinks of himself at age nine, and leaves it be.

He feels like if only he shows Yuri that he can be happy, Yuri will find his own way. So Victor spends three more years being the happiest he can possibly be while continuing his career.

He smiles and he bows and he keeps growing out his hair and he gets a poodle and he kisses gold medals on camera and men in dark corners, and he gets bolder: He incorporates feminine elements into his costumes, and he continues brushing off that cold breath of a word in interviews with increasingly flimsy explanations. He’s as happy as he gets, until he meets Yuuri and realises just how much happier he could be.


	2. Chapter 2

Victor isn't great with names and faces, but he usually assigns a word to every one of his competitors. Yuuri's word is _afraid_. Yuuri is easily the most scared person Victor has ever met.

Victor tries to pinpoint his fear to a specific thing but mostly Yuuri just seems to be afraid of people in general. On one occasion, Victor witnesses him scrambling away to avoid conversation with _the Swiss guy_ , whose word is _harmless_ in every conceivable sense.

There's probably also a pretty intense fear of failure somewhere in there, Victor concludes after seeing him land a quad in a quiet moment of his practice run, and flub his triple axis in competition. Yuuri may manage to hide his breakdowns behind locked doors, but it's in the way even his neutral expressions look strained afterward, like he's focusing very hard on just _not screaming_.

Victor stops watching his program halfway through.

At the banquet after the competition, he only really notices Yuuri when he's already spectacularly drunk. He's an adorable drunk, too: He charms all of them, sober as they are, into pole-dancing and just dancing and dance competitions, he manages to single-handedly turn a boring, polite event into a party even Victor is unlikely to forget.

He even manages to coax Yuri into a dance-off, which is quite remarkable. Yuri has a long standing policy about refusing Potentially Fun Endeavors whenever he has a choice.

At some point, from where he's perched on Victor's lap, Yuuri makes a cryptic reference Victor doesn't get, and brings Victor's ear to his mouth to add, in a slightly quieter voice: „Because I'm gay, you know?“

He doesn't say it offhandedly like Jan did, it _is_ significant to him, but what really gets Victor is that he doesn't say it like it's a dirty secret, but a _wonderful_ one. Something to be treasured.

The most afraid person Victor has ever met, and the knowledge that he's gay doesn't scare him in the least.

Victor doesn't kiss him then, because Yuuri is absolutely hammered and there is a line. There's no rush, Victor tells himself.

He even manages not to kiss Yuuri later, when he has lost the bottom half of his clothes, his tie is wound around his head, and he invites Victor to be his coach and live with his family. Victor thinks he deserves another medal for that.

There's no rush, he tells himself.

The next day, when he asks Yuuri for a commemorative selfie, and Yuuri walks out on him without even so much as a backwards glance, Victor starts wondering if maybe there is some amount of rush, after all.

„What was the name of the one who placed last again?“ he asks Yuri on the plane ride home.

Yuri's head whips around so quickly his hair smacks into Victor's face. (Has he been growing it out? Victor hasn't noticed a new haircut on him since Victor had to crop his own hair so that it would stop falling out. He refuses to be touched by that gesture. It's not a gesture. It's a coincidence. Which he is not touched by.)

„Are you fucking kidding me,“ Yuri snarls. „You _competed_ with that guy, you airhead! He practically sat on your lap during the entire banquet. He _invited you to his parents.“_

So he'd heard that. “You know how I am with the names of my competitors, Yuri,“ Victor says. The rest, though. He has no excuse.

„ _And_ his name really should have rung a bell when you heard it, because it's _mine_.“

„He's called Yuri?“

„Yuuri Katsuki. Google him and stop bothering me.“

Victor does. And then he googles _Hasetsu_  and imagines a life with a supportive family and a warm and charming and happy boyfriend who may be afraid of ants and people and everything in between, but never of holding hands in public.

 


	3. Chapter 3

When Victor has braved the streets of St Petersburg, closed the door to his apartment behind himself and Makkachin, and discarded his coat, he can feel himself relax. He leaves his suitcase by the door, collapses on the sofa, and exhales.

He can't help it: This is the only home he knows.

It makes him nervous, it tires him, it bleeds him dry, but it's also the only place he can come home to.

Makkachin hops up onto the sofa with him, and smuggles her snout into Victor's hand as she's wont to do. Victor pets her and marvels at the texture of her fur, as he is wont to do, and then he catches himself crying, which is new.

Yuuri hadn't even looked back. He'd made Victor aware of how much better he could be feeling, and then he'd just _left._

Victor buries his face in Makkachin's neck and allows himself a few moments to fall apart and come back together. When he emerges, it's dark outside and Makkachin is worriedly headbutting him – or maybe she's just hungry. Victor grabs a few tissues from the Makkachin-shaped box on the couch table and gets himself sorted out before he feeds her.

Then he goes to the rink to do what he does best – skate his feelings.

Except when he gets there, Yuri and Yakov are already there, and from the looks, Yuri is methodically taking apart the rink. Victor flinches at the sound Yuri's blades make against the barrier when he kicks it, repeatedly, with the same foot, on his skates, without falling down. If it weren't so childish Victor would be impressed.

As it is, though.

“Is that your program for your senior debut? Because it could use some work,” he calls over, and Yuri startles so badly he _almost_ falls after all. Yakov pulls a face and gathers up his things. “Don't trip each other, children,” he says over his shoulder. Yakov has a rule that no one person should ever be alone on the ice, so that accidents can't stay unnoticed. Victor had been prepared to bribe the lone guy at the register into coming along, but Yuri is stingy with his prize money, so he had to bring Yakov.

“Fuck you,” Yuri grinds out, and Victor approximates an unconcerned gesture as he enters the rink. It's big enough for the both of them. Yuri can concentrate on that one part of the barrier he seems to have beef with, and Victor can start skating his yearning. He breathes out, and tries to feel out the word _home_.

“It's not working,” Yuri says suddenly from right behind him. Victor does his best not to startle and sloppily spins around to face Yuri, whose eyebrows are pulled into a frown. Victor has some experience with Yuri's various angry faces, and this is Yuri at the end of his rope and _furious_ about it. Victor has never been great at resisting that particular brand of anger.

“What isn't?” he asks, coming to a halt. Yuri follows his example just a little late, stopping a few centimeters in front of him, and glares up at him. “Skating!” he exclaims like it should have been obvious, throwing up his arms in a sharp gesture that encompasses the whole rink and missing Victor's face by a few centimeters. “I came here to train, and it's not _working!_ ” He looks ready to kick something again. Victor backs up a few meters for good measure.

He thinks back to his own frustration at Yakov's demands that he give the audience an unspecified _something more_ , and how easy it turned out to be once he figured out what the something more was supposed to be.

“Is it because you're feeling a lot?” he asks.

“What?” Yuri is wearing his frown again, but this one is a mask. Victor can only imagine how terrified he is beneath.

“It helps me to skate my feelings sometimes. Not _despite_ them, or against them, or even with them. Just skate what you're feeling,” Victor replies, as if it's that easy.

And then he starts skating, and it is. He skates himself a home, and a boyfriend, he skates off the whispers and stares, and he bundles up all of his longing and zips it up into a step sequence – a spin – a quadruple toe loop. It tires him out pretty quickly, but by the time he clings to the barrier breathing heavily, he has a rough idea for his next program.

He scans the rink for Yuri, and finds him spiraling into desperation and a sit spin, and then the next second, he's up and launching himself into a jump, and another – and another, and Victor is putting an end to this. Yakov left the rink because he thought Yuri would be safe with Victor, and here Victor sent him straight into tailspin – it's awful to see Yuri so frantic and torn when usually all he ever shows in his skating routines is anger.

Victor is on his way to get Yuri out of the prison he's spun himself into, when something changes. Victor skids to a halt as Yuri's movements turn slower, calmer, more expressive. Sad. No: Wistful.

Here it is, Victor thinks. Yuri's problems, laid bare for inspection. Victor refuses to feel touched at the display of trust, and resolves, instead, to decipher Yuri's feelings while he has the chance.

It takes him a while to get there, but he manages to keep it to himself as he watches Yuri on his way to the barrier, legs shaking, eyes firmly on the ice. When he reaches it, Yuri just skates against it, a few meters ahead, like his skates didn't cost him a fortune and a half, and slumps over the rim.

Victor skates closer, unsure of what to do. “Did that help?” he asks, after a while.

Yuri nods, which Victor can only tell by the almost imperceptible movement of his hair, face still pressed into the barrier.

Victor chances a hand on Yuri's shoulder. Yuri turns around slowly, chest still heaving. He needs to work on his stamina, Victor notes.

“You like someone?” he asks finally. He doesn't try to make it sound sympathetic, this time. It will be wasted on Yuri anyway.

Yuri must be truly tired out, though, because all he does is scoff, and even that sounds more like an ambitious exhale than anything else.

“Who is it?” Victor needles, “Someone at the Grand Prix Final? He must be good, for you to be so gone for him already-”

For a second, Yuri looks absolutely _terrified_ before his frown is back in place.

Victor puzzles over that for a second, and then he realises.

“Oh _, shit_. It's Yuuri Katsuki. You have a crush on Yuuri _too_ , this is the _worst.”_  
  
If he hadn’t buried his face in his palms, muffling the rest of his sentence and his pained expression in his gloves, he might have seen the sharp-edged kick coming.

He probably should not have needed eyes to see it coming, either, but Victor has never claimed to be especially smart.

He wears his bruise with dignity.

 


	4. Chapter 4

“Why do you hang out with me?” Yuri asks Victor once, while they're waiting in line for their usual after-practice snack.

Victor looks at him silently for what must be way too long, contemplating and discarding answers. _Because you remind me of myself when I was younger_ would surely set Yuri off, just like _because I know a thing or two about being gay in Russia with no social safety net and it's not pretty_. _Because you're the_ _closest thing to a friend I've got_ sounds pathetic.

“Forget it,” Yuri says, and Victor tries but it decidedly does not work. Especially when Yuri grabs his burger (that Victor pays for) and says over his shoulder, “Grandpa was asking, is all. He insists you're too old and probably a creep.” He saunters towards a table and glares at a fellow customer who's about to sit down at it.

Victor forgets to order anything.

He goes and sits down opposite Yuri, who is eating his burger with outward unconcern while Victor fights down a wave of nausea.

It's too damn close to something Victor heard – or read – or saw – somewhere, at some point. A nagging voice in the back of his mind insists that there are no good reasons to be Yuri's friend, only some mildly icky ones and a few outright evil ones.

But is he Yuri's friend? Has there ever been an understanding that they're equals, are they sharing their secrets and worries? Or is it Yuri learning from and leaning on Victor, and Victor offering advice and knowledge? It's hard to pinpoint, because it's _Yuri._ He doesn't do secrets _or_ advice.

“Because you're important to me,” Victor finally settles on. The words feel heavy on his tongue, and he allows himself to switch to English. English is neutral. English is safe. “Because I want you to grow up as happy as you can, and I know that won't be easy. It certainly wasn't for me.” He pauses. “But if you feel uncomfortable because I'm that much older, you can always – leave, I suppose.”

“I'm uncomfortable _right now_ ,” Yuri replies immediately, and Victor's head snaps up. It's only when he sees Yuri's expression, mouth curled in exaggerated disgust, that he remembers that this is Yuri, and Yuri hates feelings.

“Oh my god, why did you have to be so _emotional_ about it,” Yuri continues, quickly stuffing his mouth with the next bite as if to smother anything else he is about to say.

“I mean, you _did_ ask why I'm sticking around,” Victor points out. Yuri pulls a face at that, luckily unable to reply just yet.

“But you don't creep me out or whatever,” Yuri says eventually, between two huge bites that seem to imply Victor better keep his mouth shut.

Victor doesn't know what to say anyway.

“Why didn't you order anything?” Yuri asks after he is finally done chewing and apparently notices Victor's own empty hands for the first time.

“I forgot,” Victor says, much to Yuri's delight.

He teases Victor with Alzheimer jokes all the way to the subway station where their ways part. Victor tells him that Alzheimer's isn't funny, and that Yuri will understand this when he's all grown up. By that time, there's a track safely between them, and whatever Yuri yells at him in return is swallowed by an incoming train.

*

It's Yuri who tips Victor off.

He doesn't wait for Victor after practice like he usually does these days, slamming out of the changing room before Victor can tell him goodbye (and to focus on his center more). He doesn't even respond to Victor's texts, which makes Victor worry (but not too much – Yuri has done this before, and been fine).

In an effort to distract himself, Victor turns to his twitter account.

He has about 500 new DMs.

Victor is inconsistent when it comes to social media, as he is with everything else that isn't skating. Sometimes he gets lost in it for weeks on end, live tweeting everything from competitions to walks with Makkachin only to get caught up in something else that demands his full attention, like falling in love with Yuuri or getting to know Yuri better. It's been a while.

Luckily, most of the accumulated messages seem to contain the same link, urging him with differing degrees of intensity to watch the video it links to.

Victor, once he's at home, gets comfortable on his couch with Makkachin and taps the link, curious.

It's Yuuri – more than a little out of shape, Victor notices – skating towards the middle of an ice rink (his home rink? Victor wonders briefly), getting into position.

It's a starting position Victor knows intimately.

He also knows the rest of the program, even though Yuuri noticeably lowered its difficulty. But that's not the point. The point is that Yuuri can skate Victor's program more beautifully than Victor himself. There's more feeling behind it, more rhythm in it, and even though there's only the sound of Yuuri's skates scratching against the ice in the video, Victor can perfectly hear the music.

It's a call, Victor thinks. It's a sign. A plea. Yuuri had asked Victor to be his coach, and Victor had sat on his hands waiting for Yuuri to be, what, _more specific? Louder? Clearer?_ And somehow Yuuri had managed to be all that.

It's Victor's move.

There's no rush, Victor tells himself even as he checks direct flights to Japan on his phone, but his heart isn't in it. There's only so much stagnation that Victor can take.

He dials Yakov on his landline while picking a flight.

*

Getting to Hasetsu is the easy part. Victor knows how traveling works, he can get around just fine on his own. Knocking on the door and explaining to who must be Yuuri's mother that he will be Yuuri's new coach with hands, feet, and the tiny amount of Japanese he managed to learn during the train ride, is a challenge, but one that Victor was prepared for.

He is not prepared for Yuuri to reject him about as thoroughly as possible without getting rude.

He is even less prepared for _family dinner_.

Victor can deal with tough love. It's the only kind of love he trusts, because it is the only kind of love he knows. Where his parents had only shown him lukewarm approval, Yakov had picked him out of a sea of bumbling children on the ice and went to a lot of trouble to assure his parents that letting him train Victor was worthwhile. He'd never been kind. The only way for Victor to know that Yakov cares about him not just because of his talent is through the most convoluted gestures.

Yakov's grudging tolerance of Victor's absolute failure to become anything like a disciplined student is a show of love he can stomach.

Yuri's failure to push him away whenever he pats his shoulder is an acceptable sign of affection.

The knowledge that, if bad comes to worst, Victor can count on both of them to be on his side, is something Victor usually skirts around the edges of. Like you'd avoid looking directly into the sun. Victor has always assumed that love is something you dress in insults and mild violence, something you dim down as much as you can so nobody needs to be embarrassed.

Love, if ever, is only revealed honestly in dire situations, in a solemn, heavy tone.

Yuuri's mother is not like that.

She is all undiluted devotion, seemingly uncaring that Victor is there to see her being affectionate with her family. She even extends it to him, setting down a bowl of food in front of him with a gentle touch and a kind word (that Victor doesn't understand).

Victor elects to beam back at her cheerfully, but it falls flat, he can tell. His practiced charm doesn't fit here, Victor can see it now – sees how his advances must have rung false to Yuuri, a jarring dissonance in the softest melody. No wonder Yuuri had rejected him.

Victor picks up his chopsticks and resolves to learn to love Yuuri properly, then. He knows he isn't there yet, and he knows the only way to get there is to practice.

There's no rush.

Yuuri has asked him to be here, twice.

Yuuri is not going to tell him to leave. He is going to stay right here, waiting for Victor to catch up to him, and he will watch him all the way there.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with what has been happening in Chechnya since the beginning of April, in that Victor finds out about it and reacts to the news.
> 
> [This](https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/stop-abducting-and-killing-gay-men-chechnya) is an article about it by amnesty UK, in case you haven't heard about it yet.
> 
> If you don't want to read this chapter because of that, I understand. If you read it, but think that I have handled the issue wrong, please contact me and I will do my best to fix it.

 

Victor is learning Japanese animal names, is about all the excuse he has.

He is learning Japanese animal names, and he is still struggling with this whole soft love thing – in a household full of people who live and breathe it so easily, he feels rather abandoned with this issue – but really, he knows that he has no excuse to call Yuuri a piglet.

He knows, but he can't seem to stop it.

Until Mari takes him aside one day and calls him out on it.

Mari is the closest he gets to seeing tough love in the Katsuki household, and he's felt some sort of camaraderie with her, which appears to be one-sided. She backs him into a corner and raises a finger at him.

“Look, I don't care if it's okay where you come from to go around calling people pigs. It's not okay here,” she says. “If I hear you call him that one more time I will make your life here hell, superstar or not.”

Victor stops calling Yuuri a piglet. For the most part. He tries.

 

*

 

When Yuri calls his name at the rink, Victor catches himself breathing a sigh of relief. He knows how to treat Yuri. Yuri is tough as nails and uses his love sparingly, if ever.

“Yuri!” he calls, skating towards the rink border. “You found me! What brought you here?”

Yuri just glares, and waits.

Victor's heart sinks. This is it, the _you fucked up_ look he's so often on the receiving end of.

Yuri had been tiny, it was ages ago, he'd said it mostly to keep Yuri from damaging his growing body. But of course Yuri would have kept it in mind.

“If I win the Grand Prix Junior without quads, you have to choreograph a program for me!”

“Sure”, he'd said.

It's not like Victor cares so little that he so easily forgets things – except sometimes it is exactly that. Yuuri was a priority. Victor hadn't really factored in his promise to Yuri as something to be considered in his plans because where else would he be, if not St. Petersburg? Of course he would have time to choreograph a program on the side, whatever he wound up doing.

Victor feigns nonchalance, because he knows Yuri doesn't like dealing with apologies. (And Victor doesn't like apologising.)

He proposes a skate-off, because he is greedy – trying to keep everyone he loves in one place that is preferably not Russia.

He knows it probably won't end well, what with the two Yuris and none of the feelings they have for each other matching up, but Victor will just enjoy it while it lasts.

 

*

 

Victor finds out what is happening in Chechnya during one of his breaks – or rather, the times the two Yuris spend training their core strength and that he tends to use to wander the streets of Hasetsu. He's getting better at finding his way around, and he's just stopping on a bridge to snap a picture and scroll through his Facebook feed, when he sees it.

Nobody from back home has said anything. He finds out through a Facebook post shared by – he checks – Chris Giacometti, which, he remembers, is the Swiss Guy.

His home country is watching on as concentration camps for people like him are being built.

It feels -

Victor puts his feelings on hold while he scrolls through the article. He has distant acquaintances from Chechnya whose sexuality he's not sure about. The article says not to check up on them. Maybe this is why nobody told him – don't give anyone a lead, don't give anyone proof he's gay _just in case_.

Victor sits down on the pavement, freezing cold be damned, and checks his bank account. There's more money on it than he could ever hope to spend.

He donates a chunk of it to the organisation the article links to, and shares the link.

He sends Chris a message that says: _Hi, what's up?_

He starts crying on a cold sidewalk several thousand miles from home in body and soul.

 _Victor!_ Chris messages back. _This is a surprise! I'm just enjoying a night out with a couple of friends, what are you up to?_

_Heard you're coaching the Japanese Yuri now, if coaching is what they're calling it nowadays ;)_

Victor's fingers are stiff from the cold and shaky from crying, so it takes him a while to type back:

_Oh, didn't want to disturb you while you're socialising!_  
_If socialising is what they're calling it nowadays ;)_  
_Hey I just wanted to say thanks_

he hesitates. What if it's stupid? Chris is gay. Of course this concerns him too. Of course Chris didn't share it with Victor in mind. Maybe the world doesn't revolve around Victor.

He is just about to invent an incident he could be grateful for, when Chris texts back.

 _Don't mention it._ ❤️

Victor switches off his phone, blows his nose, and gathers his wits. He is just about to get up when Yuuri finds him.

“Victor?” he crouches down. “Are you okay? My mum called and told me our hairdresser had seen you sitting on the sidewalk and called her -”

Hasetsu is the smallest town Victor has ever been in.

It's charming, in a way. There's no getting lost, here.

“I'm fine”, Victor says, and holds out his hand expectantly.

Yuuri stutters and blushes and fidgets a little, but he takes Victor's hand and helps him up.

There are still some tears stubbornly clinging to Victor's eyelashes. He blinks them away and hopes Yuuri won't say anything. He's not ready for soft love, just yet. He's just cried in public for the first time since he was a toddler. Baby steps.

“Let's go home”, Victor says, and if he stresses the last word a little more than necessary, there's nobody here to call him out on it.

Yuuri half-smiles at him, like he doesn't know what to make of Victor. He doesn't claim back his hand until they cross the first stranger, which – bless Hasetsu – doesn't happen for a few minutes.

 

*

 

 _he took my hand_ , Yuri texts him one day, after Victor sent the two of them to a waterfall to reflect on their programs and the feelings they're supposed to convey with them – well, he sent Yuri, and since Yuri is fifteen and new to the country and also cannot be trusted to actually go where Victor told him to go, he volunteered Yuuri to accompany him.

Victor doesn't text back _I know exactly how you feel_ , but it is a close thing. _How do you feel about it_ he writes back instead.

 _???? !!!! !??!,_ Yuri's next text reads.

Victor agrees wholeheartedly.

 _Technically he took my wrist_ , Yuri adds a few minutes later.  
_I think I figured out this agape thing,_ another minute later, is the text that makes Victor decide to get absolutely smashed and not come back until morning.

 _Congrats_ he replies, and contemplates whether to add a warning that Yuuri doesn't seem like a creep who's into underage teens and for Yuri not to get his hopes up.

 _My grandpa_ Yuri texts.  
_In case you were wondering. I'll be skating the agape program for my grandpa_  
  
Victor is already wearing his coat. There's no going back now.

 

*

 

Victor knows he's going to choose Yuuri. He knows that he has no desire to go back to Russia just yet, he knows he wants to follow his feelings in this as far as they will go. He would be sorry later, otherwise.

That doesn't mean he isn't sorry now.

“You could stay”, he tells Yuri one evening, contemplatively. Yuri is sitting on his bed, already in his pajamas, and Victor, lacking a seat, has made himself comfortable on the floor. Onsen on Ice is tomorrow. “If you were to lose the challenge. I can coach you both. You don't have to go back -”

“What the fuck”, Yuri hisses. “Don't talk to me about losing, now! That's like, the number one rule for successful coaching, _obviously_ you can't coach two people at once. You barely manage one.”

Victor ignores the insult. “Look, Yuri, I know you aren't following the news and this isn't even _on_ the news, but things are happening in Chechnya right now -”

“I know”, Yuri interrupts him. For once, he sounds serious. “Maybe I'm not following the news, but I do follow you on Facebook.”

Victor, stupidly, almost tears up.

“Look, I'm probably just being paranoid”, he starts when he's sure his voice is steady again, “Chechnya is autonomous, and it's a long way from St. Petersburg. But Russia isn't doing anything about this, and sometimes the law doesn't need to be against you. It's enough if everyone knows the law won't be defending you. I just don't think it's a good idea to go back to Russia right now – as a gay man, especially - “

“I'm NOT A GAY MAN!” Yuri's voice breaks, and he slams his head back into the wall.

Victor scrambles to his side, cradling the back of Yuri's head in his hands. The deep rumble of the second half of Yuri's sentence is ringing in his ears. He has no idea what just happened, or what to do. The yelling and the slamming equally seemed like a knee-jerk reaction, one that is so ingrained no amount of training will get rid of it again. He carefully searches for bumps, more as an excuse for grabbing Yuri's head than anything else.

“I'm worried they won't let you come back, is all”, he says.

“Well, don't be”, Yuri says, dismissive. It's a stark contrast to how he still hasn't protested against Victor's touch.

The next day, when he leaves, he doesn't tell Victor goodbye.

Victor misses home like he never has before.

Hugging Yuuri is worth every second of it.


End file.
